What’s New Archive

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What's New Archive ● 2000 ● January

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January 31

Added Ten Things Wrong with Cosmological Creationism (2000) [ 51K ] by Richard Carrier.

Response to a short series of exchanges on cosmological creationism which explains many of Richard Carrier's views on the subject and exhibits what he sees are paradigm examples of what is wrong with the thinking and methods of most lay creationists. Since he usually finds at least one of these errors in each creationist argument he encounters, for creationists to have a chance of changing his mind on this issue, they must first avoid all ten of these errors in any argument they present.

January 30

Updated the Infidels' submissions guidelines to explain our new policy of paying for one or two feature articles per month.

Added new radio interview with Ed Buckner of the Atlanta Freethought Society

Added new feature "Death and the Meaning of Life" (2000) by Keith Augustine as a highlighted feature.

Added breaking story "Proposed Legislation Encourages Christian Bigotry" (2000) by Steven Schafersman

Posted a substantially revised edition of "Josh McDowell's 'Evidence' for Jesus: Is It Reliable?" (2000) [ 87K ] by Jeffery Jay Lowder

Lowder has substantially revised his essay. He removed the criticisms of Josh McDowell for not interacting with the works of authors who defend the mythicist hypothesis. He also completely reworked his comments on the New Testament evidence, the writings of the church fathers, Tertullian's reference to Tiberius, Thallus, and Tacitus. (Concerning Tacitus, Lowder refutes the suggestion that Pliny's professionalism and integrity as a historian would have given him the motive to investigate the historicity of Jesus.) Finally, he made some minor revisions to his conclusions concerning the Talmudic sources on Jesus.

January 27

Added Science, Confirmation, and the Theistic Hypothesis (1986) [ Index ] by Keith M. Parsons

This thesis examines various attempts to construe theism as an explanatory hypothesis and to defend it with arguments similar to those employed in the confirmation of scientific hypotheses. It is the aim of this work to show that such a construal fails to confirm theism and in actuality leads to its disconfirmation.

January 26

Added the essay "Afterlife and Meaning" by Kevin D. Huddleston

Huddleston questions Still's philosophical assault on the notion of life after death. If this life is a time for soul-making, then our earthly life is neither purposeless nor overshadowed by the afterlife to come.

Denis Giron updated the Islam page in the Theism section of the Modern Library.

January 23

In this revision of an earlier essay, Lowder explores two widely-held assertions, namely, that all nonbelievers are freethinkers and that no believers can be freethinkers.

January 22

Added "A Critique of Miracles by C. S. Lewis" (2000) [ 24K ] by Nicholas Tattersall

Without argument, C.S. Lewis supposes naturalists are committed to views they are not, yet his arguments against those irrelevant views are unsuccessful.

January 21

Updated our Call for Papers

We've added requests for papers on the following topics:

• Fine-tuning Argument. Over the last couple of years, we've published several essays which criticize the so-called "fine-tuning" argument for the existence of God. We're interested in publishing a theistic defense of the argument against our criticisms.
• Pascal's Wager. Likewise, we've published several several refutations of Pascal's wager. We'd like to publish an essay by someone who thinks these objections can be overcome.

January 20

Updated the Atheistic Cosmological Argument page in the Arguments for Atheism section of the Modern Library.

Updated the Arguments from Incoherence page in the Arguments for Atheism section of the Modern Library.

Updated our Call for Papers

We've added requests for papers on the following topics:

• We're interested in publishing papers (pro and con) on the argument from consciousness for theism.
• In recent papers, Michael Martin and Mark Vuletic have each responded to the ontological moral argument by arguing that objective moral values are consistent with the nonexistence of God. We're interested in publishing a theistic reply to these papers.
• In a recent article, Dan Barker argued that the concept of God is incoherent because God is said to have free will. We are interested in publishing a theistic reply to Barker's article.
• A common objection to atheism is that "you can't prove a negative." Atheists Richard Carrier, Jeffery Jay Lowder, and Mark Vuletic have responded to that claim. We're interested in publishing a paper by a theist or an agnostic which responds to Carrier, Lowder, or Vuletic.

Added "Does Logic Presuppose the Existence of the Christian God?" (2000) [ 22K ] by Michael Martin

Martin argues that there are no good reasons to believe logic presupposes the Christian god.

January 18

Added "The Other Side of Time" (2000) [ 12K ] by Victor J. Stenger

Short essay by physicist Victor Stenger in which it is shown that the universe need not have had a beginning.

Infidel Interview with Wendy Kaminer on the Secular Web Radio Show

Wendy Kaminer demonstrates that she is a keen observer of the sort of pervasive pop-culture superstition that has overtaken many people in North America and elsewhere. In her conversation with T. J., she addresses everything from the saccharine-sweet Celestine Prophecy to the failure of critical thinking in the face of enormous irrationalism.

Posted the feedback for November to the Feedback page.

January 15

Added the feature article "Death is Not an Event in Life" (2000) by James Still to the Features page.

We tumble into the world without purpose and when we leave it we are gone forever. But I still believe that, rightly examined and understood, we can experience eternal life.

Added Margaret Sanger by John Patrick Michael Murphy to the Freethought section of the Modern library.

She turned around the medical profession, the courts, and even the legislatures, as she made family planning a rational alternative to the sick notion that some perverse god insists on having an overpopulated world. Late in life she wrote what motivated her activism - "No woman can call herself free who does not own or control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother."

January 10

Updated the About page to include the radio interview with incoming II president James Still

January 9

Added "Zens' Defense of TAG" (2000) [ 9K ] by Michael Martin

Martin responds to presuppositionalist Adam Spurgeon Zens.

On January 15, after five years of building the Secular Web from the ground up, Internet Infidels President Jeffery Jay Lowder will retire. Jeff has decided it is time to move on and is interested in going back to school to study philosophy. He also looks forward to finishing several papers and other projects.

January 3

Added a link to the Williams/Martin Debate: "Is there a personal god?" in Michael Martin's author page

Added a short essay "The Origin of the Word 'Agnostic'" by Bill Young to the Agnosticism section